Ashvaghosha

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This passage is from the Buddha-charita, the first complete biography of the Buddha, written by the poet Ashvaghosha, probably in the first century C.E. The Buddha-charita is made up of twenty-eight songs recounting events in Shakyamuni Buddha’s life up to the time of his great awakening. These verses speak of Shakyamuni's family and the events that surrounded the birth of the historical Buddha. Original spellings and usages from this 1893 translation by Edward B. Cowell have been retained throughout. This installment marks the first in a series of excerpts from The Buddha-Karita or Life of Buddha, reprinted with permission from Cosmo Publications, New Delhi, India.